


Bando wo Produce

by ghost_lingering



Category: Nobuta wo Produce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-04 05:43:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghost_lingering/pseuds/ghost_lingering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mariko," she says over lunch a few weeks later, "let's produce Bando-kun."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bando wo Produce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/gifts).



> [written as a stocking stuffer for Yuletide 2006.](http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/32/bandowo.html) Posting here for safe keeping.

The second time Mariko smiles at her and she is able to smile back, she sees Bando frowning down the hall, staring. Nobuta knows that when she was a child she had the ability to smile. She images her father, her blood father, holding her as a baby and watching her laugh, the way children laugh. It's frightening, a little, actually. But she believes everyone laughed when they were young. And she is proof that even those who forget to laugh can do it again.

"Mariko," she says over lunch a few weeks later, "let's produce Bando-kun."

"Produce?" Mariko asks, raising her eyebrows, "What do you mean, 'produce'? Make her a star?"

Nobuta shakes her head, and remembers at the last minute not to look down. She doesn't do the show during lunch, anymore. It lost popularity after a while, and she's found she'd rather eat with Mariko in her classroom than have everyone watch her face. She loves Shuji, she does, but she has come to find that popularity is not what she wants from her life. This, food, Mariko, the pig in her pocket, smiling--she is happy.

"Produce," Nobuta says, "What Shuji did for me--we need to teach her to be happy."

Mariko tilts her head. "I thought Shuji was trying to make you popular?" Nobuta blushes and ducks her head, nodding, trying to hide the embarrassment by eating more from Mariko's bento. But then Mariko smiles and nods her head. "Ok, yes. Let's try to make her happy."

+++

After school Mariko has basketball and Nobuta goes to the rooftop to think. They cannot do what Shuji did and tell Bando what they are doing; she would never agree to that. Over the side of the school she can see the vice-principal climb over a fence and do a back flip; she can see Shittaka pace back and forth waiting for Kasumi to walk her home (he has been wanting to ask her on a date for the past three weeks and Nobuta would love to wish him luck but it's Kasumi and Nobuta half thinks that Shittaka will need more than her luck for that); she sees Bando getting hit by her boyfriend.

She takes her pig out of her pocket and gets out a piece of paper and a pencil and starts to write:

_Dear Shuji,_

_What is the first rule of producing somebody? How can you produce somebody with their knowing about it?_

_\--Nobuta_

She pauses to look at her letter, then gets out another sheet.

_Dear Akira,_

_How would you produce somebody?_

_\--Nobuta_

The letters aren't perfect, but she sends them anyway, knowing they will answer, even if they don't understand what for.

+++

The first day of Nobuta and Mariko's secret plan to produce Bando, Bando makes a girl a year below them cry, and Nobuta slips into the bathroom, after, and wipes off her tears and smoothes her hair saying: "It will get better. It will get better."

Mariko, meanwhile, invites Bando to come with her to look at books at her favorite bookstore. Bando frowns, but Mariko links their arms and drags her along to class, chatting about fashion magazines and new issues of manga that she wants to buy. After school Nobuta hides and watches as Mariko drags Bando away, watches as Mariko looks back and flashes a quick victory sign when Bando is looking the other way.

It is only later, after eating a silent dinner with her father and mother, that Nobuta sits alone in her room looking at her pig and not doing homework that she gets two text messages. One from Akira saying: "Producing Shuji-kun NOW" and one from Mariko saying: "Tomorrow Bando, you, and I--bookstore, ok?"

+++

A week into the producing and Bando has refused to go back to the bookstore and has taken to terrorizing the entire lower classes. It has gotten so bad that she and her friends were even yelled at, though only by the vice-principal, who is prone to noticing those sorts of things when no one else does.

Nobuta gets a letter back from Shuji saying:

_Nobuta:_

_To produce first you must convince the other person that you are producing that they need to be produced. To do this you should offer incentives (popularity, friends, etc) and generally try to keep them agreeing with you at all times._

_\--Shuji_

She gets another text message from Akira, this time with the words: "Stage one of Shuji-production begins NOW".

Mariko makes shrimp themed bentos for the two of them that are the best lunches Nobuta has ever eaten.

"Why do you make me lunch?" Nobuta asks when she is finished. "Should I bring bentos tomorrow?"

Mariko laughs, and Nobuta, who has forgotten not to look at the ground, tries to half smile. "I love cooking," Mariko says, "I love making food for other people." She leans forward. "It was the best part about dating Shuji." She giggles a little, but then looks away, sad, as if she didn't mean to say that.

"He liked your lunches. He talked about them all the time." Nobuta says, trying not to feel guilty, though she isn't quite sure what for. Lying, she supposes. But then they start to talk about their last history assignment and neither girl mentions Shuji again.

+++

During the first half of week two, Bando makes fifteen girls cry, pulls twelve girls' hair, and has a large welt across her cheek from where her boyfriend must have hit her. Nobuta and Mariko try to comfort the girls and get Bando to go shopping with them, but Bando has become adept at avoiding their attempts at friendship.

"We need to try something else," Mariko says as they walk home from school, "This just isn't working."

Nobuta nods, once, and rubs at the pig in her pocket, trying to figure out what to say when her phone rings.

"Nobuta!" she hears Akira shout, through some slight static, "Shuji production is working! I will send you pictures, kon!"

She hears the click as he hangs up the phone, and shakes her head.

"Who was that?" Mariko asks at the same time Nobuta asks if they can use Mariko's computer.

"Akira is sending me pictures," Nobuta says, "Of Shuji, I think."

Mariko frowns, slightly, just enough that Nobuta registers she made a mistake, but when they look at the pictures--bright flamboyant outfits, messy hair, smiles, smiles, smiles, even Mariko has to laugh.

"He's changed a lot," she comments, and Nobuta just nods, entranced.

+++

By the end of the week Bando has given up on the younger girls and turns, again, to Nobuta. This time, however, the entire class stands up for her, mostly by ignoring Bando and telling Nobuta that they are looking forward to the new school show that she is producing. After school, however, Nobuta is fairly certain that she sees a Bando in one of the bathrooms, trying to wash yellow paint out of her hair, so she guesses that not all of her classmates have been so nice about defending her. Kasumi finally just asked Shittaka out herself, but Nobuta is sure that she still stocks up on yellow paint, even if now she only is mean to people who are mean to others. Nobuta is not sure if that is an impovement.

"This is a good opportunity," Nobuta tells Mariko, who is worried about the whole ordeal. "We can corner Bando about it, tell her that I went through the same thing and we can help."

They are sitting on some park swings and planning, kicking at the ground and switching back and forth between talking about Bando, classes, Mariko's last basketball game, the new show that Nobuta is working on, and the latest fashions. It's different than talking to Shuji and Akira, who were boys, who were crazy, in a way that Mariko just isn't.

The night before Nobuta got a frantic letter from Shuji asking about pig costumes, and three more text messages from Akira that were all exclamation marks and nonsensical English phrases. She still spends her afternoons on the roof, waiting for Mariko to get out of practice, watching Bando get beat up or do the beating, but she is glad that Shuji and Akira are gone now. She misses them, a constant tugging at the back of her head, the conviction that if she turns around just so they'll be standing there, but without them around all the time she is really able, truly, to understand that they are as imperfect (and wonderful) as she is. It's a relief to finally know that as much as she craves Shuji's approval, he doesn't have all the answers. Though she is glad, in retrospect, that he forced her to get her hair cut (even if he did only follow Mariko's instructions).

"Corner her where?" Mariko asks, and Nobuta shrugs. She sees Bando behind the school all the time, but there is a chance her boyfriend would be there and that would do no one any good. She begins to suggest the bathroom, since that's where Bando seems to like to torment everyone, but then she hears yelling and turns around.

"Tell me the truth! Tell me!" Nobuta and Mariko look at each other, then get up and run towards the yelling. "Tell me the truth!"

They see Bando, corned by the truth man, looking angry, looking scared. "I wish I was friends with Mariko and Nobuta," she says, before pushing past the truth man, who looks after her, for a time, and then runs the other way.

Mariko and Nobuta look at each other. "Let's try the bookstore, again?" Nobuta asks, and Mariko smiles, linking their arms together and following after Bando. There is the heavy weight of the pig in Nobuta's pocket, and later tonight Akira will probably send her more strange pictures of Shuji, maybe dressed as a pig, maybe with spiky hair, maybe trying to dance and failing, but definately, definately smiling, and definately entertaining enough to share with her class.

Behind them, the vice-principal watches from a roof, before doing a back flip to the ground and walking away. "Baka, they are so baka!"


End file.
